


Usually Fatal

by aguntoaknifefight (Lilith_Child)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Autistic Character, Don't copy to another site, Drowning, Gen, Screenplay/Script Format, Statement, Web!Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 19:32:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17351258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilith_Child/pseuds/aguntoaknifefight
Summary: Statement of Jess Waller, given November 12th, 2017. Statement regarding a near drowning, successfully taken by Acting Head Archivist Martin Blackwood.





	Usually Fatal

**Author's Note:**

> How many of my childhood fears can I fit into one story? The answer is apparently seven.

[tape clicks on]

MB: Our normal Archivist is…indisposed right now, but I think I might be able - I _am_ qualified to take your statement.

JW: Okay. I - I don’t know what you want me to say. I didn’t see a - a ghost or anything, I just…Alexei thinks this will be good for me and I want it to be, but I - don’t know. I can start at the beginning, if you want? 

MB: If that’s what works best for you. Um, statement of Jess Waller. Statement taken November 12, 2017 by Acting Head Archivist Martin Blackwood. Statement regarding…?

JW: I drowned. Nearly drowned.

MB: Statement begins. Start, please. Tell me what happened.

JW: Okay. We, um — my family never had a pool when I was younger. That’s when you’re statistically the most likely to drown. When you’re young, and you have access to water. Which I didn’t. But I knew how to swim, because my mom’s brother drowned when he was a kid, and she insisted that we wouldn’t. My siblings and I. She, uh, doesn’t know. About this. We’re not really close. So I never really enjoyed water, because I was always aware of how dangerous it was and then later, dysphoria. I mean, swimsuits are just awful.

MB: Mmm.

JW: But I never hated it, either. We didn’t go to the beach on holiday often, but when we did I would swim. I remember that I liked the taste of the salt, and how light the water made me feel. Compared to the ocean, I was so small. Salt water is dense, so it’s easier to float. Then I grew up and I went to university. I, um, dropped out for personal reasons halfway through my third year, and I somehow ended up working at this big industrial farm. That was in 2013. The work was hard, but lodging and food was paid for. It wasn’t great, but it was free.

MB: Yeah.

JW: It started raining a lot, after I’d been there for a few months. Too much. I mean, I feel like I should make a joke about the English weather, but outside of the greenhouses, the crops started rotting. We all watched our paychecks get smaller and smaller with every raindrop, and people started leaving. I’d sit in my room and watch the slush of people trickling out just after dawn each day. It would bring nothing but grey, endless rain. It never stopped. Maybe we should have built an ark! [short laugh] But I didn’t have anywhere to go, really, so I stayed as long as I could.

The farm was big, but it hadn’t started out that way. The buildings thrust out from the ground like the desperate breaths of a dying animal. They tried to get as far away as they possibly could. Everything was mud. I don’t want to name the company, because I remember the leak from this place back in the nineties. I don’t want to jeopardize anything. The name I gave you is real, but my legal name was different when I worked for them. And it wasn’t exactly, y’know. Completely above-board. 

So I explored a lot, because, like I said, I don’t — didn’t — mind water, just cold. The smell was awful, but you got used to it after a while. There were all these buildings left abandoned when whoever lived there before sold it. A house, a barn, a couple of sheds. Your standard stuff. I didn’t like the house. Just — too many ghosts. And the sheds were too small to be interesting. Two were completely empty, with mold spreading across the walls in this great sickening tapestry. The other was full of rusty old tools, and just looked like a tetanus hazard. So I stayed out of there, and kept to the barn.

Stormy light filtered grey-green through big holes in what was left of the roof. The sky looked exactly the same, but it felt different now. The clouds were big and thick and I just stopped and stared at them. I don’t know why. Something about them was just - they were so, I don’t know - so huge. And I was just this insignificant speck, but something about it made me feel…powerful, I guess. 

Because I was living and those clouds — they would eventually blow away and never come together in the same way again. It made me excited, I guess, and I was just filled with this incredible energy. I wanted to - do something…Hurt someone, maybe. I don’t know. I wouldn’t - I don’t think I would have, but it was just so - so! It was - religious, almost, but I’ve never been. I don’t - I don’t have words.

MB: Jess.

JW: Sorry. Sorry. I don’t know how to explain it, though. It was like nothing could touch me. I was tempting fate by thinking it, I guess. But I started exploring the barn in almost a frenzy, just noticing how insignificant I was compared to everything else, but it didn’t matter because I was too small to hurt. There’s a heady feeling to that. To this day, I don’t know what happened to me there, before. Well. Before. I know what happened after that. I’d never felt like that any other time.

MB: You haven’t felt it since?

JW: No. Well - not the same feeling. Not the same way.

MB: [quietly] Fear.

JW: Sorry?

MB: What you’re feeling now, it’s closer to fear?

JW: Yeah. Or - I don’t know. It might - they were both fear, I think. But right then it was so total that I transcended it completely. It was - the best thing I’ve ever felt. Or, not the best, that’s not the right word but -

MB: The purest.

JW: Yes! Yes, the purest thing I’ve ever felt. I should stop - you don’t want me to talk about this.

MB: Your feelings are part of what happened. I’m just here to - listen.

JW: Still. Um. There was this old metal wash tub or water trough or something that someone had dragged under the biggest hole in the roof. It had rained more than I’d realized, I guess, because it was almost full. Whoever’d done it had put it on a table, and one of the legs must have been shorter than the others, so some of the water was seeping to mix with the dirt floor. Maybe it was the um, religious fear that I was feeling, but for a second I thought it looked almost like an altar.

It was new and I wasn’t thinking straight. The dirty fear compounded with the clarity I was already feeling, so I approached it. It made me angry. I wanted to destroy it. The natural flow of the mud on the ground was ruined under my boots, so I guess I did, a bit. But not the way I wanted. I’d never run into anyone else while exploring, because like I said, it was a big farm and this was pretty far away from where we were living. So I didn’t - I wasn’t expecting - um. 

It was - it was a man who attacked me, I think. His face was covered but most of the people there were men. I never found out who he was but I don’t think it would have mattered. Um, he wasn’t…It felt like he wasn’t the _point_ of it. Or something.

MB: What was the point?

JW: To…I don’t know. To hurt me, I guess? …To - fill me? I don’t…I’m sorry, can we not talk about motivations? I don’t know. I don’t know what he wanted.

MB: Yes, sorry. Please continue.

JW: I tried to run when I saw him, but my boots got stuck in the thick mud long enough for him to get all the way to me. He got his hands around my neck, and started squeezing. I tried to fight him off, but I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to do, and then the mud let me go, so I overbalanced and stumbled backwards into the side of the washtub. The metal was cold. Then he shoved me down and it got colder.

My face went under the water and I couldn’t get out. I’d let all my air out in a surprised rush of breath, so I knew I didn’t have enough time. My eyes were open. The water was dirty, and for some reason that upset me the most, even as I knew I could die. Water shouldn’t - something so big like that should be above dirt. 

The dull rim of the tub was shoved hard into my shoulders, and it hurt more than I would have expected. All I could do was fight my instincts and tilt my head further into the water so that I could take advantage of any extra leverage it gave me. It didn’t help.

Rain water is freshwater, hard to float in — but my hair had come loose and it was so weightless in the water. That’s all I could think. Everything was burning — my eyes, my neck, my skin, and especially my lungs — but all I could think about was the way that my hair was moving like - like seaweed, just floating. It was so incongruent with everything happening and I just - I think I gave up. I was running out of time. I couldn’t fight anymore. Even as I could feel my body lashing out and trying to peel off his skin with my nails, wanting to live, my hair was just spreading out silently and it was _already dead._

So my mind made the decision that since clearly trying to fight him wasn’t making a difference, and — I swear it made sense at the time — part of me was already unarguably dead, I could stop wasting my energy and. I don’t know. Die in less pain? Fold away into a different form? I wasn’t getting a lot of oxygen at that point, because my mouth wouldn’t stay shut and I couldn’t stop trying to breathe. There was so much water.

Everything slowed down. All I felt was the punishing grind of the water. You don’t realize it usually, or at least I didn’t, but water is a physical thing, and when there’s a lot of it that means it has weight. It is - irresistible, if you don’t have gravity on your side. You can’t push it out. And it’s so cold that you can’t help but feel every single centimetre your body gives up.

I wanted to throw up, but it was all I could do to watch my hair spin with my progressively slower efforts to throw off my attacker and try to ignore water filling up every crevice and pressing against every line in my face. There was no separation at all between me and the water. It started to replace me. And then I was on the floor, with my heavy wet hair thwapping in my face. It was so cold.

[chair creaking]

I’m sorry, I. I need to take a break.

MB: Okay. That’s fine. Do you want tea, or? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t. I’m sorry. I won’t make you keep talking. 

JW: It’s fine, it’s not the same kind of - I like the warmth. Tea would be nice. Thank you.

MB: Alright. I’ll be right back. There’s a kettle on the stove.

[pause]

JW: Is there something else?

MB: No, sorry. Just. If you see anyone else, don’t…Tell them you’re applying for a job.

JW: I’m not. Applying for a job. Right?

MB: No, no. It’s just a - precaution.

JW: …alright.

[tape clicks off]

[tape clicks on]

MB: Sorry, I realized I didn’t ask what you prefer. It’s Earl Grey, if that’s alright?

JW: It’s fine, thank you.

[clinking]

JW: What should-?

MB: I’ll take care of them, it’s fine. Are you ready?

JW: Yeah. Um. So I was on the ground, coughing. I thought I was going to tear out my lungs. I read a lot of Victorian novels when I was younger. So I’ve always had this ridiculous fear, that someday I was going to start coughing and there would just be blood. There wasn’t then, only endless water, but it sure felt like it. Every cough tasted red. It’s hard to think about this, I’m sorry. My brain won’t let me focus.

MB: It’s alright.

JW: The encounter couldn’t have lasted long, because I didn’t pass out. That means the whole thing took under three minutes. There’s the, ah, Rule of Threes? For how long a human body can last without needed things. For air, it’s three minutes. Then you pass out and you die. Three is such a prickly number. It doesn’t fit evenly into anything, and it’s green like storm clouds. It’s untrustworthy. It’s a liar. I don’t understand why we have to be governed by it. I don’t know why I’m not dead.

MB: So you didn’t pass out.

JW: Right. Sorry, yes. I didn’t pass out. As I sat coughing, mud oozing everywhere, I realized that I should probably do something. And I didn’t want to stay on the ground for longer than I had to, because it almost felt like the mud was trying to suck me back down. Like it was quicksand. So I ended up going to the hospital, because I knew I was supposed to. I almost didn’t. I didn’t want to bother anyone and I just wanted to - forget it. If I didn’t take any steps then it didn’t happen, right? 

Everything about it was just so weird. It could have been a dream. I could have taken a shower and forgotten about it. I could have stayed on the farm. But I was so cold that I went to the hospital anyway. 

There was a lot of water in my lungs. Or, I don’t know if it was a lot. But there’s not supposed to be any, so. They gave me oxygen and waited six hours to rule out brain damage. Then they let me leave. I’d knocked my head against the rim of the tub, but they’d said it wasn’t a concussion. I didn’t feel like I should be driving, though, so I just sat in the parking lot with the doors locked for a while, trying to get my bearings. I knew I couldn’t go back to the farm. I just left. There were some clothes I never got back but I figured it was worth it. 

I didn’t have any towels, so I just had to wait for my hair to finally stop dribbling water down my back. It took a while. During the wait, I went over what had happened again and again and again until I knew the story by heart. Then I could write it down on a napkin for posterity when I eventually caved and got food. Which I did. And then I knew I wouldn’t feel - obligated to think about it more. I mean, I did, of course I did, but I wouldn’t _have_ to. 

Um, I brought it with me, if you want? More information can’t hurt, right?

[paper shuffling]

MB: Thank you. Multiple accounts are always good. Did you go to the police?

JW: Ha. No. It didn’t even occur to me. I was alone, then I wasn’t, but I went to the hospital and they let me go. It was fine. I had a friend who was willing to let me crash on his couch, so I stayed with her for a while, until I found a job and a place. It was fine. Everything was fine.

I uh, I cut my hair after - after everything. It seemed like the most tangible change I could make. I didn’t want to at first, because it took me so long to grow it out the first time around. But then I woke up one night in the kitchen. There was light spilling everywhere — that was the only word I could think, spilling — and my head was so heavy that I felt like it would drag me straight into the ground. There was mud on the floor that I must have tracked in, but I couldn’t remember going outside. It must have been raining. My hair was soaking wet.

Then I noticed — I looked down or something, because I don’t know how I would have missed it otherwise — that there was a burning line across the middle of my too-cold hands. It felt like someone had sunk their teeth in and refused to let go. I looked down and saw that blood was running across my outstretched palm and I was holding a knife by the blade. I kept scissors right next to that knife in the drawer, but I hadn’t grabbed them. 

The cut wasn’t deep, and I didn’t go to the hospital or anything, but it - it scared me. So the next day I made an emergency appointment with the hairstylist in the next apartment over and I told him to do whatever. I don’t know how to cut hair. I just wanted it gone. 

After that, things got better. I never went back to the farm. I never got my last paycheck, but I wasn’t going to go back. I could skip breakfast. And I haven’t been around any water since except for showering, and even that was. It was hard, at first. But my hair is easier to wash when I can’t see it, and my head was lighter. That might be because I cut off a foot of hair, but. And I haven’t had any more incidents with knives.

So I don’t think about it much anymore. But my partner Alexei -

MB: Use full names, please.

JW: Um, Alexei Nye. They’re the one who got me here, because they believe in all of this sh-um, all of this - more than I do. They set up this really nice surprise two-year anniversary party for the two of us. It was sweet and normally I would have loved it, but it was — we drove out to this beach and I just - started freaking out in the car when we pulled up. I don’t really remember it, other than feeling so panicked I thought I would die and then the awful - awful cold, but they told me later that I was clawing at my neck like I wanted to ‘dig the air out’.

I couldn’t talk after. Not, um, not physically - it wasn’t that bad, but I was a wreck, mentally. Eventually I was able to put myself back together enough to tell them what happened. It’s the first time I really just talked since it happened. And then Alexei listened and they believed me, which was a relief. I hadn’t — even though I knew they believed in ghosts and stuff, I didn’t think they would believe me.

I don’t - no offense, but I don’t believe in all of this supernatural stuff. I think I just had a bad experience, and fear made it into something else. But your receptionist said it qualified, and it’s not like we can afford a therapist. So when Alexei said you helped them, I figured I could give it a shot.

MB: No offense taken. Trust can be…hard. But that’s everything?

JW: Yeah. Do you mind if I ask a question?

MB: Um. No, I guess? Go ahead.

JW: How many other people come to you with things like this?

MB: Drownings? There are a few. I’m not sure the exact number. Being buried alive… it’s usually fatal. So we don’t get a lot of them.

JW: I wasn’t buried alive.

MB: No, I know, I’m sorry. It’s how we categorize them, internally. Like I said, we don’t get a lot of drownings.

JW: How does the system work?

MB: Um, I don’t know if I can - share that. I’m sorry, but…

[door creaking]

PL: Oh, hello! I’m sorry, are you busy?

JW: No, I was just…on my way out? But I wanted…? I should leave.

MB: Yeah. Yes. Thank you for your statement, we’ll get back to you with any new information we uncover.

JW: I - thank you.

MB: If you don’t want us to, we don’t have to contact you again.

JW: Oh. I want - that. Is that alright?

PL: Yes, it’s alright. It’s just not…standard practice.

MB: _I’m not Jon._

PL: No, you certainly aren’t.

[fabric rustling]

JW: Can I go?

MB: Yes. I’m sorry - that you had to dredge all of this up again.

JW: No, it’s fine. It was really nice to talk to you, actually. Just…down the hall, right?

MB: Right.

[door closes]

PL: How will Jon feel, coming back here and finding you walking already?

MB: I’m not replacing him.

PL: [laughing] No, you most certainly are not. 

MB: It’s not - they would talk to anyone. I’m the acting Archivist. There wasn’t one, when Jon got kidnapped. [pause] I don’t - I don’t want to talk about this again.

PL: Mmm. Whatever you want, Martin.

[footsteps, door opens]

[sounds of someone distantly humming “The Incy-Wincy Spider”]

MB: [quietly] I’m not a monster. 

[pause]

MB: Not yet.

[tape clicks off]


End file.
